Monday, January 25, 2010

Artist Talks - Magggnnus Woodget - Cocktail Robots

Below is the edited transcript of Magggnnus Woodget's Artist talk held at 5am SLT Sunday 24 January at the UWA 3D Art & Design Artist Talks.

Magggnnus Woodget:welcome everyone, i am magggnnus woodget in SL - magnus wurzer in RLon my board you can see my entry in to UWA challenge for january - a cyclops sculpture leaning on a contraption which dispenes cocktails

in RL i have been dealing with cocktail robotics for over ten years -roboexotica festival promotes a flavor of robotics that doesnt so much concentrate on efficiency as it does on aesthetics and "personality" of the robotso in RL we have been awarding the best cocktail robots with the "ACRA" (annual cocktail robot awars) since 1999

on my board now: robomojia robot that is only making mojitosin a loud and beautiful waynot so much efficientbut loads of fun to watch up closelast year we held our first workshopthis here is the result

a robot that mixes white russians and white hippies (the vegan version)so the situation in RL is that cocktail robotics still needs promotion and is still considered something exoticin SL on the other hand ....when i entered SL in 2007 i found that cocktail robots are rather normalso the challenge in SL not to promote the idea itselfbut to further the evolution of contraptionsand see what can be done to make things more interactive and or awesthetically pleasingin 2009 we decided to award the first ever Virtual Cocktail Robot Awardwhich was won by Misprint Thrsday with her beautiful Wodkabotat the mixed reality Awards ceremony -qDot Bunnyhug, a former Linden, demonstrated the first mixed reality cocktail robotwhich was featured on NWN as you can see on my board nowthe left pic shows SLthe two boxes are "buttons"with which one could trigger the outpu of liquids in RL(right picture)this kind of mixed reality interaction is something i want to look at myself in the future

so, since i arrived in SL i did some tinkering myselfsome cocktail robots would look like this one - more "realistic" in that it looks like a box one could slap together in RL

some more like one would wish a robot would look likehere again you see the one i entered in january into the uwa challenge ...

and i have a give away for you all nowget this animated picture of cyclops martini drinker :)

so if you want to know more about all this - visit roboexotica.org for info on RL cocktail roboticsand mechatiki.blogspot.com for info on our inworld activitiestheres also this roboexotica booklet outi put it on the floor here, you can take a copy ..

when u click it, it opens a link to amazon where you can get the real book.... thanks for your interest! i am taking questions now :)

quadrapop Lane: TY Magggnnus - Do you make these robots in RL as well?Magggnnus Woodget: well quadro, although i am "dealing" with them since 1999 it took until last year that i actually got involved in physically building one - at the workshop

Phillip Vought: you referred to an interesting phenominon earlier.. do you find people prefer to make SL reflect RL or fantasy..Magggnnus Woodget: @phillip ... i see both!

rant Ugajin: Magggnuss, what is the purpose of your smoking in SL?Magggnnus Woodget: um to obfuscate my face? or the joy of never having to light a new one?

420 Xeltentat: is the purpose to make these robots efficient ? or more crazy off the wall like a rune glifberg type thing?Magggnnus Woodget: @rant purpose is 1. personality, flair, aesthetics .... & last efficiency

Corcosman Voom: How many participants were there in the workshop?[edit after asking Magggnnus again:]Magggnnus Woodget: thanks for the chance to answer this one ;D .... we had just 2 participants, but 100% of them were female, which looks good statistically ;)

quadrapop Lane: Do they actually make decent cocktails?Magggnnus Woodget: some actually do ...have to say not ALL dobut i have had excellent drinks made by someMagggnnus Woodget: so .... folks, we do plan to have a Virtual Cocktail Robot Award this year as well ... so if any of you has an idea for a cool SL cocktail robot ...

quadrapop Lane: how many entered last year? and were they all in both sl and rl?Magggnnus Woodget: hahaha, just misprint, all other cocktail robots were noncompetitve. nono, either sl or rl, except qDots which overlappedmisprint was the first SL artist who expressed her will to participate in the awardsso that was the signal to start with VCRA ;Dand naturally she deserved the award for enteringnext year will be more competitive i suppose lolquadrapop Lane: great - be sure to give us the info to distribute closer to the time for more SL based ones:)